Internet scheduling environment with market-driven agents

This paper describes a new generation scheduling paradigm, the Internet scheduling environment. It is formed by a group of Internet scheduling agents which share computational resources to solve scheduling problems in a distributed and collaborative manner. We propose a migration scheme to transform existing standalone scheduling systems to Internet scheduling agents that can communicate with each other and solve problems beyond individual capabilities. To coordinate computational resource collaboration among agents, we introduce the market-based control mechanism is which self-interested agents initiate or participate in auctions to sell or buy scheduling problems. Efficient allocation of computational resources is achieved through the auctions. This paper also describes a prototype Internet scheduling environment named LekiNET, which is migrated from LEKIN®, a flexible job shop scheduling system. The experiments on the LekiNET testbed demonstrate that the agent-based market-driven Internet scheduling environment is feasible and advantageous to future scheduling research and development.published_or_final_versio

A hierarchical assessment method using bayesian network for material risk detection on green supply chain

Today's social awareness of environmental protection presents the electronic companies with an irreversible trend towards green manufacturing. It raises harsh requirement for the sourcing process and imposes unprecedented pressure to the QA system, majorly due to the risk of hazardous material. As QA procedures are becoming more complicated for coping with increasing material risk and meanwhile the time and resource available are tightly constrained, the development of an effective mechanism for material testing turns up to be a critical issue. In this study, a hierarchical material risk assessment approach is proposed based on FMEA framework. Taking into account the risk occurrence, the difficulty in detection and the severity the risk causes, it enables companies to estimate their material risks dynamically using Bayesian network. With its help, companies can assess and prioritize the material risk in a systematic and efficient manner which will drive QA towards a more high-performance process. ©2010 IEEE.published_or_final_versionThe IEEE International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management (IEEM 2010), Macao, China, 7-10 December 2010. In Proceedings of IEEM, 2010, p. 1184-118

Virtual objects in electronic catalogs: A human-computer interface issue

Web interface design is an important aspect of electronic commerce (EC). However, apart from design frameworks and guidelines for Web-based EC, not much has been done by researchers or practitioners on how electronic catalogs (e-catalogs) influence the users' desirability and satisfaction as purchasers. In this correspondence, we investigate the form of media that represented the most efficient mode to present products to Web users by summarizing and evaluating various existing forms of e-catalogs and their respective responses from Web users. We conclude that a 3-D virtual object (VO) is the most efficient mode of electronic cataloging for Web interface due to a better sense of presence of users, a more attractive and enjoyable media of delivery of useful information to users, and a higher level of engagement of user's memory. A 3-D VO, as a result, generates the highest users' satisfaction, which leads to increased propensity to purchase. Further, we discuss the practical and theoretical research implications of these findings to e-catalogs. © 2007 IEEE.published_or_final_versio

Modeling and analysis of supply chain risk system under the influence of partners' collaboration

Confining the focus to individual enterprise, traditional risk management literature seems to echo inadequately in the context of collaborative supply chain, partially due to its exclusion of correlation of risks across companies. In this study, we refine the notion of risk in supply chain and propose a model of supply chain risk system (SCRS) that consciously takes into account the correlation among risks resulting from partners' collaboration. Through analytical inference we found that the level of collaboration contributes to the resilience of supply chain. It implies that collaboration can positively affect the topology of SCRS, thus benefiting supply chain operations in terms of risk management. A simulation program has been developed with aim to demonstrate the practical feasibility of the proposed model. Implemented in simulation, two sets of experiments have been conducted for testing the model in actual business scenarios. The experimental results provide supporting evidence to consolidate the analytical findings. © 2011 IEEE.published_or_final_versionThe 44th Hawaii International Conference on System Science (HICSS 2011), Kauai, HI., 4-7 January 2011. In Proceedings of the Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2011, p. 1-1

E-procurement in public sector: a global overview

This paper provides a global overview of both recent developments and current initiatives in public e-procurement. The Hong Kong Government’s E-Procurement Pilot Programme will serve as a case study that will be discussed using a descriptive case study approach. A qualitative methodology is employed with findings that indicate that the development of public e-procurement is a matter of perception rather than other factors such as ITC infrastructure availability. E-procurement is underutilised in the public sector, where the majority of implemented systems are in the form of e-journal and e-tendering solutions. Concurrently, the findings also point to a growing trend in cross-border initiatives within public sectors where e-procurement is the driving force. The case study results suggest that the Hong Kong Government’s initiative is successful especially in terms of political support, adaptation of suppliers and system design. This paper provides valuable insight into the potential role of public e-procurement initiatives.postprin

Design and evaluation of improvement method on the web information navigation - A stochastic search approach

With the advent of fast growing Internet and World Wide Web (the Web), more and more companies enhance the business competitiveness by conducting electronic commerce. At the same time, more and more people gather or process information by surfing on the Web. However, due to unbalanced Web traffic and poorly organized information, users suffer from slow communication and disordered information. To improve the situation, information providers can analyze the traffic and Uniform Resource Locator (URL) counters to adjust the information layering and organization; nevertheless, heterogeneous navigation patterns and dynamic fluctuating Web traffic complicate the improvement process. Alternatively, improvement can be made by giving direct guidance to the surfers in navigating the Web sites. In this paper, information retrieval on a Web site is modeled as a Markov chain associated with the corresponding dynamic Web traffic and designated information pages. We consider four models of information retrieval based on combination of the level of skill or experience of the surfers as well as the degree of navigation support by the sites. Simulation is conducted to evaluate the performance of the different types of navigation guidance. In addition, we evaluate the four models of information retrieval in terms of complexity and applicability. The paper concludes with a research summary and a direction for future research efforts. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.postprin

The design and evaluation of accessibility on web navigation

Web sites have been deployed to create and sustain business competitiveness in a trend of emerging Web technologies and growing e-commerce. One critical success factor of e-commerce is the ability to allow information to be retrieved from a Web site in an efficient and effective manner. Such ability, being determined by both the Web site structure and the Web page organization, can be measured in terms of accessibility and popularity of Web pages. The relationship between accessibility and popularity of web pages is dynamic in nature and can be analyzed to enhance a Web design. Having observed the lack of means to measure information retrieval of a Web site, this paper purports to introduce a guideline to evaluate Web page accessibility based on several structural-based accessibility models where an innovative accessibility-popularity (A-P) analysis is deployed to measure and, thereby, to modify a Web structure. Both push (i.e. demand driven) strategies and pull (i.e. design driven) strategies are incorporated into such guideline. Further, accessibility models are analyzed and compared in order to identify appropriate applications for each model. The paper is concluded by a summary of future directions of the accessibility models. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.link_to_subscribed_fulltex

Analysis of evaluation models for websites

The use of the web to support and enhance business operations and services has grown at an accelerating pace in the last decade, as manifested by firms' increasing embrace of various web-enabled business models and strategies. Conceivably, an individual's information search or retrieval effectiveness or efficiency greatly depends on the organisation of the contents accessible at a site; e.g., web pages. The 'quality' of website design has not yet received due attention from prior research, particularly quality design and assessment at the website level. An integrated approach is proposed to (1) design a conceptual network for modelling the structure of a website, (2) develop accessibility models for website design assessment and (3) enhance the design quality of a website on an evolutionary basis. The approach takes into consideration individuals' dynamic browsing/navigation behaviours and integrates website design, evaluation and improvement to support continual and adaptive enhancements

Communication infrastructure in distributed scheduling

The emergence of distributed artificial intelligent (DAI) introduced a new approach to solve scheduling problems by a set of scheduling systems that interact with each other in the problem-solving process. In this paper, we describe a communication infrastructure to handle connection and communication between distributed Internet scheduling systems for distributed applications. First, we present an agent model of distributed scheduling systems where agents can communicate and coordinate activities with each other via an agent communication language. Then, we define the syntax and semantics for the agent communication languages, and negotiation mechanism. Following that, we discuss the design and development of the prototype for the multi-agent scheduling systems. We conclude with a discussion of communication issues for heterogeneous agent-based scheduling systems to solve distributed scheduling problems. © 2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.link_to_subscribed_fulltex

Electronic commerce front-end in apparel supply chain

Information technology has been used increasingly to enhance the global competitiveness in various industries through the widespread application of cost effective electronic commerce. Many Internet-based systems have been designed and developed for supply chain management in many areas, such as publishing, computer, and garment industries. Most of them mainly center on information communication infrastructure, coordination between production and distribution, and purchasing functions with security mechanism. In this paper, we focus on the most common modules in electronic commerce front-end to conjoin various business organizations and to strengthen business competence, namely (1) an efficient web page and catalogue generator; (2) a hybrid search engine specifically for product, merchandise, equipment, and other enabling technologies; and (3) a set of tools to monitor usage patterns to further improve the web page organization. We also address the issues on implementation, examples and future directions. © 2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.link_to_subscribed_fulltex